Sunday, December 6, 2015

I recently read that people often feel like they lose a part of their identity when they lose a loved one. It’s taken me almost a year to realize that this is exactly how I feel. I think this feeling of emptiness first started with the physical absence created by my grandma moving out of the house and into the nursing home. Her health had been deteriorating for some time and there was no way that we could take care of her anymore, so she had to go.

It’s hard for me to explain how significant a change that was for me. After she moved, I felt so alone at home. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. She wasn’t in the kitchen, the living room, or the backyard. She wasn’t anywhere. She was just gone.

Having to visit her was quite depressing. I find there are very few places that are as gloomy as nursing homes. Everyone there is just waiting to die. No one has anything to live for anymore. And only the lucky ones get frequent visitors.

Despite how much my grandma’s absence from the house changed my life, she was still a part of it. I continued having conversations with her, smiling with her, eating with her... So she wasn’t really gone then, she was just in a foreign environment. I think this is why I didn’t feel a part of me was missing until after she died. That part of me, whatever part it was, was still somewhat intact.

My grandma always played a central role in my personal life, and because of this, I can’t even reflect on the times when she wasn’t there.
She was always there. And that's such a meaningful aspect of my life. I mean, even though I love philosophy and I identify as a philosopher, I can easily imagine my life without it. I can simply think back to how I was in college. But I can't do the same with my grandma.

I don’t think that part of me will ever come back. I think it’ll just be an ever-present gap in my life.

The purpose of this blog is to be a supplement to my future autobiography. Having my daily recordings will present in more detail all the interesting experiences and reflections that I have had. My autobiography, in contrast, will present a more general analysis of my life, hopefully written with the perspective acquired from a lifetime of experience.

These are the recordings of an ordinary person trying to live an extraordinary life.